Werner Boote’s revealing documentary is one of those movies that you know you must watch, and then are so depressed afterwards that you wished you hadn’t. There’s probably no startling new facts that he has gathered as he traipsed around the world trying to find out the real truth about plastic, but all lumped together they are really scary. Evidently, its not just the fact that we are doing our planet un-repairable damage by all the plastic we use and dump, but the very fact that in the actual manufacturing process it uses so many toxic ingredients it is actually making people seriously sick and dying. The last part I must confess I didn’t know.
Boote is no Michael Moore, and in fact sometimes on camera his style of questioning some of the plastic industry bigwigs is totally annoying, but his passion is heartfelt and genuine, and so are the results of the film. We sense his frustration and those of the ‘good guys’ like the Vice President of the European Commission who are trying to do something (she relayed that it took her Scientists 10 years just to investigate a mere 11 of the thousands of toxic substances before they would even publish a Report!).
Despite his flashes of humor to make this movie entertaining as well as just informative, there is no getting away from horrifying facts such as a plastic bottle in a landfill will last as long as 500 years.
I wonder if Joan Rivers will still be with us then?
★★★★★★★
Labels: documentary
